Gillian Welch and David Rawlings video

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings video



Gillian Welch and David Rawlings playing Red Clay Halo live
(thanks to audioeclectix at YouTube)

Two Viewpoints on the New Spiritual Movements

Two Viewpoints on the New Spiritual Movements

Here are two opinions on the impact of the political strategy of Rabbi Michael Lerner's Network of Spiritual Progressives. I agree 100% with Mr. Wakefield's word below. As a Christian I stand by the opinion that, without a vision, the people do perish. Justice and freedom perish. Sometimes it takes prophetic vision to not only inspire, but to make otherwise impossible ideas materialize in world that is well-known for wearing blinders. The angels of our better nature will always be the angels of our better nature.

I believe that Martin Edlund (whose words follow Mr. Wakefield's further below) is looking to the next election - perhaps 2008. That has its place, but if real change is ever going to come, it must come through prophetic vision.

Dan Wakefield/Boston Globe:

Before the next elections it would profit the Democrats to take seriously some of Lerner's perceptive and creative ideas . Lerner understands that the secular left needs to tone down its hostility to religion and spirituality if it hopes to win elections in a country in which the vast majority of voters consider themselves religious. Wallis tells the story of a young man in Boston who told him at a book signing it was easier to come out as gay in Massachusetts than to come out as religious in the Democratic Party. Lerner now has his own story of the way religion is perceived along party lines. When a volunteer in the last election said he couldn't attend a Sunday morning meeting because he had to go to church, his committee chairman was confused. ``I thought you were a Democrat," he said.

Lerner hopes to change that perception, and this book is a good starting point.

I believe that Martin Edlund (at Slate) is tending to forget that the Network of Spiritual Progressives is a fledgling movement on its way to finding its strength from the grassroots-up and does not seek to counter the message of Reverend Jim Wallis. Mr. Edlund wrote:

[Rev.]Wallis has been a frequent adviser to the party since the 2004 election, and both [Sen.] Hillary Clinton and [Sen.]Barack Obama are scheduled to appear at his conference this week. During his event, by contrast, Lerner had to settle for a private, off-the-record meeting with Obama.

Regardless of the fact that it was over or under the radar, Senator Obama's words say more about spiritual unity than politics. I don't see any need to promote division between God-fearing, moral and ethical people, I resent Mr. Edlund's soft characterization of these Spritual Progrssives as sandal-wearing weirdos, and I disrespect politicians who act out of fear rather than conviction. Senator Obama was not afraid to say what he meant yesterday, and both Reverend Wallis and Rabbi Lerner wholeheartedly approved. Rabbi Lerner's Tikkun sent out an email yesterday about Obama's speech, saying:

Last month during the Spiritual Activism conference that brought 1,200 Spiritual Progressives to Washington, D.C. , Rabbi Michael Lerner met privately with U.S. Senator Barack Obama to discuss the NSP’s Spiritual Covenant with America and Lerner’s book The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right. What he found was a remarkable level of shared ideas in relationship to the Network of Spiritual Progressives’ basic message.

I most deeply regret to see writers hoping to divide people of similar spirit and purpose. It calls to mind the lockstep Republicans in Congress who strategically seek to make the Democrats appear divided, when they are actually far more liberal thinkers in the public square, which leads to debate, innovation, and progress rather than stale lockstep conservatism.

The conference's Spiritual Covenant with America included more concrete proposals on everything from corporate responsibility to foreign policy and the environment. But its scattershot approach puzzled some attendees. I tagged along with one on a Capitol Hill visit at which he handed the list to his Congressman's staffers and urged them to "just pick one thing, I don't care what it is."

I was at the same conference that Mr. Edlund is speaking of, and I can understand the point in his article about the somewhat confusing nature of the visits to our Congresspeople. However, I have to say that the beauty behind the very idea of Spiritual Progressives meeting with their respective Congresspeople was to reinforce the idea that we citizens are the leaders that we've been waiting for. Make no mistake, many people came away from that conference with the knowledge and self-awareness surrounding their newfound empowerment.

...he [Rev. Wallis] must leave [Rabbi] Lerner behind.

I can't tell you how much I disagree with this statement. America's spiritual renewal and America's democracy will only be stronger because the people are unafraid to be the leaders they've waited for. In this day and age where so many religions are at war with one another, Rabbi Lerner needs Reverend Wallis and Reverend Wallis needs Rabbi Lerner. We need them, too - now more than ever. They are both decent, intelligent, and amazingly reverent men of God - great teachers both - and we are lucky to have their presence and help here on this earth.

No Plan for Victory in Iraq- But Who Cares?

No Plan for Victory in Iraq - But Who Cares?

Bush has no plan for victory because all of his neocon's plans went chaotically astray. Rest assured, though. Karl Rove will find a way to make shit shine.

General "Wave the White Flag" Casey agrees with most Democrats - let's get our troops out of Iraq on an intelligently steady-but-surely basis. Mr. Rove will still beat the "cut and run" drum.

If reason follows any of the arguments of the few Iraq War supporters that are left today, Iraq's new Prime Minister al-Maliki must look like a sniveling and cowardly little peacenik - a commie 'girlie man' who says, "Hey, evil killers, we can talk this out. Kumbayah. I'll let your crimes against these occupiers go if you'll just stop shooting at us. I'll even set a timetable. Come - let us love."

November's coming. Hurry, partisan rubber-stamp Republicans! Karl Rove's writing your flag-draped talking points as we speak. Prepare to wet your flabby lips and hope to reach empty heads. Here are your talking points, rubber-stampers. Get ready to let 'em fly....

Victory is ours.
We got Saddam.
We got Zarqawi.
We've killed and captured evil terrorists, at home and abroad.
After a series of democratic elections Iraq has a new democratic government.
We brought the war straight to the terrorists instead of having to fight them here at home.
Iraq is now free and democratic nation.
Our troops have done their duty for democracy and freedom, and now they're coming home.
We are stronger.
We are more secure.
We've made the world safer for democracy.
Remember 9/11.
Flag.
Remember 9/11.
Flag.
Remember 9/11.
Flag.
Remember 9/11.

and...

Remember 9/11.

...even though there was never had a connection to the government of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people are unecessarily dead and the civic infrastructure of an entire country is destroyed... but who cares now? We "won." So take that win and shove it, you fucking Democrat rat bastards We are one united and strong nation, under God, indivisible.

Barack Obama on Faith and Politics

Barack Obama on Faith and Politics



Listen to the speech HERE (Real Audio) or HERE (Windows Media)


Sen. Obama: On Faith and Politics
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006
Call to Renewal (Sojourners) Conference,
Washington, D.C.

Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Call to Renewal’s Building a Covenant for a New America conference, and I’d like to congratulate you all on the thoughtful presentations you’ve given so far about poverty and justice in America. I think all of us would affirm that caring for the poor finds root in all of our religious traditions – certainly that’s true for my own.

But today I’d like to talk about the connection between religion and politics and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter arguments over this issue over the last several years.

I do so because, as you all know, we can affirm the importance of poverty in the Bible and discuss the religious call to environmental stewardship all we want, but it won’t have an impact if we don’t tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America.

For me, this need was illustrated during my 2004 face for the U.S. Senate. My opponent, Alan Keyes, was well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.

Indeed, towards the end of the campaign, Mr. Keyes said that, “Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.”

Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, his arguments not worth entertaining.

What they didn’t understand, however, was that I had to take him seriously. For he claimed to speak for my religion – he claimed knowledge of certain truths.

Mr. Obama says he’s a Christian, he would say, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he’s a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.

What would my supporters have me say? That a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? That Mr. Keyes, a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?

Unwilling to go there, I answered with the typically liberal response in some debates – namely, that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can’t impose my religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.

But Mr. Keyes implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer didn’t adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and beliefs.

My dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader debate we’ve been having in this country for the last thirty years over the role of religion in politics.

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest “gap” in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don’t.

Conservative leaders, from Falwell and Robertson to Karl Rove and Ralph Reed, have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that – regardless of our personal beliefs – constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, some liberals dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word “Christian” describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith.

Such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when the opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people, and join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

We first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people believe in angels than do those who believe in evolution.

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that’s deeper than that – a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.

Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily round – dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets – and coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They’re looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them – that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway towards nothingness.

I speak from experience here. I was not raised in a particularly religious household. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, I did too.

It wasn’t until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.

The Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me; they saw that I knew their Book and shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed a part of me that remained removed, detached, an observer in their midst. In time, I too came to realize that something was missing – that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart and alone.

If not for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn to the church.

For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; it is an active, palpable agent in the world. It is a source of hope.

And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship, the grounding of faith in struggle, that the church offered me a second insight: that faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubts. You need to come to church precisely because you are of this world, not apart from it; you need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in your difficult journey.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

The path I traveled has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans – evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at a turning point in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives them.

This is why, if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at – to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own – we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome – others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

In other words, if we don’t reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, Jerry Falwell’s and Pat Robertson’s will continue to hold sway.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical – if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. Imagine Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address without reference to “the judgments of the Lord,” or King’s I Have a Dream speech without reference to “all of God’s children.” Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical. Our fear of getting “preachy” may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness – in the imperfections of man.

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy; it will also require changes in hearts and minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturer’s lobby – but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we have a problem of morality; there’s a hole in that young man’s heart – a hole that government programs alone cannot fix.

I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws; but I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation’s CEOs can bring quicker results than a battalion of lawyers.

I think we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys, and give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished. But my bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman’s sense of self, a young man’s sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence all young people for the act of sexual intimacy.

I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith – the politician who shows up at a black church around election time and claps – off rhythm – to the gospel choir.

But what I am suggesting is this – secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize the overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of “thou” and not just “I,” resonates in religious congregations across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of America’s renewal.

Some of this is already beginning to happen. Pastors like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like my friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality. National denominations have shown themselves as a force on Capitol Hill, on issues such as immigration and the federal budget. And across the country, individual churches like my own are sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders reclaim their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

To build on these still-tentative partnerships between the religious and secular worlds will take work – a lot more work than we’ve done so far. The tensions and suspicions on each side of the religious divide will have to be squarely addressed, and each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration.

While I’ve already laid out some of the work that progressives need to do on this, I that the conservative leaders of the Religious Right will need to acknowledge a few things as well.

For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. That during our founding, it was not the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of this separation; it was the persecuted religious minorities, Baptists like John Leland, who were most concerned that any state-sponsored religion might hinder their ability to practice their faith.

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians within our borders, who’s Christianity would we teach in the schools? James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Levitacus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage so radical that it’s doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application?

This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

This may be difficult for those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of the possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.

We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.

Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God’s test of devotion.

But it’s fair to say that if any of us saw a twenty-first century Abraham raising the knife on the roof of his apartment building, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that are possible for all of us to know, be it common laws or basic reason.

Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion.

This goes for both sides.

Even those who claim the Bible’s inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, a sense that some passages – the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ’s divinity – are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.

The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.

But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation – context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase “under God;” I certainly didn’t. Having voluntary student prayer groups using school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs – targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers – that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.

So we all have some work to do here. But I am hopeful that we can bridge the gaps that exist and overcome the prejudices each of us bring to this debate. And I have faith that millions of believing Americans want that to happen. No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool to attack and belittle and divide – they’re tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon. Because in the end, that’s not how they think about faith in their own lives.

.

So let me end with another interaction I had during my campaign. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:

“Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you.”

The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be “totalizing.” His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of President Bush’s foreign policy.

But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight “right wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” He went on to write:

“I sense that you have a strong sense of justice…and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason…Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded….You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others…I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

I checked my web-site and found the offending words. My staff had written them to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.

Re-reading the doctor’s letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in reasonable terms – those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.

I wrote back to the doctor and thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own – a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.

It is a prayer I still say for America today – a hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It’s a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come. Thank you.

Our Honored Children Deserve A Change in Foreign Policy

Our Honored Children Deserve A Change in Foreign Policy
Originally posted on May 6, 2006

"A country against which
the world is united is not a superpower."

- Paul Craig Roberts

David Beamer's beloved son died while fighting for his life and the life of his fellow travelers on September 11. Cindy Sheehan also lost a cherished son who was fighting for his life, for a cause, and for the lives of his fellow Americans. Michael Berg mourns the loss of his son Nick, who was executed by terrorists two years ago. All of those young men were brave, true, and trusting Americans. Good and decent souls, all. Their parents loved them and raised them from infancy to honorable manhood.


Al Zappala, who lost his son Sherwood Baker in the Iraq War
These are his thoughts
photo by Iddybud

A movie has been made to dramatize the events that led to the death of Todd Beamer and the other passengers on the ill-fated United Flight 93 which crashed in a farmfield in Shanksville, Pennslyvania. The alleged target of the hijackers was said to have been the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Todd Beamer's father David recently wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal about "United 93" after having seen a preview of the film. He said:

"It is not too soon for this story to be told, seen and heard. But it is too soon for us to become complacent. It is too soon for us to think of this war in only national terms. We need to be mindful that this enemy, who made those holes in our landscape and caused the deaths of some 3,000 of our fellow free people, has a vision to personally kill or convert each and every one of us. This film reminds us that this war is personal."

Mr. Beamer is right. Individual conscience and liberty are at the very heart of our Declaration of Independence. If we believe our personal liberty is paramount to human rights and the rule of law, it should stand for us and for all people of this world. We need to stop acting unilaterally and begin to lead and cooperate with other nations whose people, each of them an individual of conscience, have as much at stake as we do. Mr. Beamer doesn't want his son to have fought and died in vain. Neither does Cindy Sheehan or Michael Berg want for their sons to have died in vain. America never should have split from the world community, squandering their cooperation, trust, and will to cut terror at its roots in solidarity.

President Bush is all too willing to take Mr. Beamer's caring statement and turn it into an excuse to spill his misguided brand of unilateral war (after limp shows of consulting with the international community) over to the boundaries of other nations. I am not at all comfortable with Bush's treatment of Mr. Beamer's concerns and comments.

In an interview with the financial news network CNBC, Mr Bush said he had yet to see the recently released film of the uprising, a dramatic portrayal of events on the United Airlines plane before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

But he said he agreed with the description of David Beamer, whose son Todd died in the crash, who in a Wall Street Journal commentary last month called it "our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war, World War III".

Mr Bush said: "I believe that. I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III."

The President will not change his mind once he sees the film "United 93", for his mind was made up long before September 11. His sights were set on removing Saddam Hussein and forcing a democratization in which even British PM Tony Blair is uncomfortable to have his nation participating. As Stephen Colbert wryly jabbed at the recent White House Correspondent's dinner,

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.

Understanding the consequences of the President's dogmatic and unbending style of war-making and foreign policy (even in the bold face of contradicting reality), I shudder at hearing Bush say the very words "World War Three". He has surely earned his reputation as the least-trusted President in America's history.


Mr. Beamer's concerns focus upon the potential loss of individual liberty resulting from the post-Cold War tactics of terrorists:

This enemy is on a fanatical mission to take away our lives and liberty--[..] This enemy seeks to take away the free will that our Creator has endowed in us. [..] we are at war with a real enemy and it is personal. [..] This enemy does not seek our resources, our land or our materials, but rather to alter our very way of life."

Because of our founding roots, Americans understand that no one alters our way of life unless we allow them to do so. What a shame to have to look to our own government with distrust because of their deliberate misleading and failure to go into a war with a strategy to win or a plan to get us out. The Bush administration has failed Mr. Beamer, Mr. Berg, and Mrs. Sheehan, along with the rest of the world's civil individuals.

Michael. Berg is running for public office (Green Party) and has his own strong views on President Bush's war on terror. Each parent of each lost soul in this new war has a different opinion about the way our nation is struggling with it. Emotion may tug at our hearts when we hear each of these parents reach out to the public, and it's a great symbol of the core founding of America that each one of these parents speaks out with freedom. It is then up to us, all citizens, to decide on the best future course for safeguarding our personal freedoms. That includes the ways that our nation decides to defend itself.

Mr. Beamer knows that war is sometimes inevitable :

"There are those who would hope to escape the pain of war."

In a nuclear age, I believe that we should remember that military intervention and 'hot' war should be our dead-last resort. Let's remember Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son to what she believes has been a war of lies told to America by its very own leader. Mr. Beamer has obviously read and respects the words of our Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. I wish that I saw the same respect for the Founding documents by our own President. His concern for himself and for the power of his office has trumped all respect for the rule of American law. I, and many other citizens, believe that he has run roughshod over our individual liberties and mocked the rule of law. What a pity that Americans, at this time in our history, have to be so concerned for the very life of our own democracy when we should be united against those who employ terror against all the world's people.

We the People do not trust George W. Bush. What a sorry day.

Consumers are Being Disinformed on Net Neutrality

Consumers are Being Disinformed on Net Neutrality

Special interests are deliberately disinforming consumers about the Net Neutrality issue in order to win their support for anti-neutrality legislation. In other words, lies are being employed to ensure the future of telcos to be able to dicriminate via routers - a virtual privatization of the internet. Think of today's watered-down cable news and then imagine a future internet with a whole new wave of telco reconsolidation.

The disinforming voices from the pro-telco HandsOffTheInternet.com are already promoting a "Red State" agenda on the issue. Read this excerpt from their front page:

Pew demonstrates, just “24% of rural Americans have high-speed internet connections,” a double-digit difference from their urban counterparts. If you live in a city or close-in suburb, this may be news to you. But if you’re one of the millions of Americans who does live in a rural area, you’re probably all too aware.

Imagine the day that you go to search on Google.com and you get an automatic re-routing to Yahoo's decidely less desirable search engine - only because Yahoo has paid "free market" prices and Google was "elbowed out" (thanks to Justice department-facilitated pay-offs to big telcos) with all costs passed down to the consumers who search for what they can no longer find! Imagine a day without having access to Google's awesome search ability because it's been purchased by "free market" interests and rolled into one big discriminatory engine, leaving consumers only an internet soaked with a "Big Brother" agenda. Imagine searching for a progressive blog and progressive blogs are no longer included as a priority for search in a non-neutrality internet world.

Without net neutrality, "free market" means "less free choice." Regardless of what the slick pro-telco consultants are telling you now, a look back at telecommunications history with pro-business-at-any-cost Republican attitudes toward the industry should tell you to trust your gut.

Cory Doctorow on "Neutricide":

Phone and cable companies are looking for the right to charge popular Internet sites like Google and Yahoo to carry data to customers. The big Internet companies, they argue, are getting a free ride, using lots of bandwidth to get to customers and not paying a fair price for it. This will only get worse, they say, as multimedia content becomes more popular, demanding more bandwidth.


This argument is rubbish. Internet companies already are paying for bandwidth from their providers, often the same companies that want to charge them yet again under their new proposals. And for these providers to be screaming for the protection of the free market is sheer hypocrisy--they themselves are creatures of government regulation, basing their business on government-granted extraordinary privileges.

Cory has a plan to stop Neutricide.


The well-paid mouthpieces for the telcos that you have been recently hearing on the cable news networks and talk radio shows are fighting against real freedom and choice while they lie to you, bold-faced, telling you that they're updating the internet for your free market convenience. A further guarantee of anti-competition within the industry will be ensured if net neutrality disappears, allowing discriminatory routers to stifle small-business entrepreneurial innovation.

We can see which way the wind is blowing. Radio and television has been destroyed for intelligent choice and freedom of speech by the telecommunication industry's incestuous relationship with the federal government. Now they want to dumb down the internet. Fiber updating doesn't have to mean we should risk losing freedom of information, but the legalized elimination of net neutrality will make it so. A few years ago. Anti-neutrality legislation will stifle the voice of conscience in America. It will ensure that the strongest voice and best access to information will be directly in the hands of the richest investors who will monopolize the voice and the access. It is just another form of legalized extortion.

I'm going to be linking a talk radio show (when available) - a virtual David vs. Goliath conversation on Charlotte Talks this morning over the topic of net neutrality [see post by Anonymoses]. The conversation took place between a small-business entrepreneur and a well-rehearsed pro-Telco consultant. The talk radio show host seemed easily led by the consultant with his professionally-crafted talking points, and I believe that the complex nature of the issue will work against those who support neutrality. There's too much corporate money and Republican interest working against the interests of pro-neutrality. Cory Doctorow on "corporate welfare bums":

The Bells and cable companies owe their existence to governmental largesse, and, while they're profit-making private firms, they are, in effect, quasigovernmental organizations. A Bell that wants to get rid of regulation is about as practical as a cotton-candy cone that wants to get rid of sugar. Bells are nothing but a thin veneer of arrogance wrapped around a regulatory monopoly.

The saddest part of all of this is that we proponents of net neutrality know that Thomas Jefferson would disapprove of these oligarchic tactics and undue corporate welfare.

Amnesty for Murderers: Will the Blood of US Troops Be on Bush Republicans?

Amnesty for Murderers: Will the Blood of US Troops Be on Bush Republicans?

Many partisan Republicans find it repulsive to entertain the thought of amnesty for harmless Mexican immigrants whose only crime was crossing the border illegally and being hired by unethical American businesses.

The same partisan Republicans support Iraq leader al-Maliki's proposal of amnesty for insurgents whose crime was to MURDER our American soldiers.

If Republicans support this Iraqi amnesty proposal as part of the new government's so-called "reconciliation plan," then the blood of every single American - every smothered gleam in some mother's eye - murdered by insurgents from that day forward will be on the hands of the Republicans who got behind such a heinous proposal in a sick attempt to salvage George W. Bush's mess!

It's now past the appropriate time to have begun to bring these brave men and women home and intelligently end the military occupation of Iraq. The clock is ticking.

A Few of My Saturday Thoughts and Recommendations

A Few of My Saturday Thoughts and Recommendations

It's a good day for:







Alexi Murdoch makes beautiful music and has little care for fame. I am enchanted by his tunes and by his voice. His Four Songs was CDBaby's all time best selling record. Alexi performed on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic earlier this month. Watch the video at KCRW - Alexi will mesmerize you with his songcraft.





Bruce Springsteen interview with Soledad O'Brien on CNN [*thanks to Atrios/YouTube]


Bruce Springsteen on Conan O'Brien, June 23rd - "Bring 'Em Home" - a beautiful song.

Paul Katcher has a good collection of online Springsteen videos.

Nick Lewis on The Eye of Power.


I wish there was some way for me to tell Mrs. Durgin how very sorry I am.


Read about the Politics and Blogging session at Saturday's BloggerCon.


Dave Taylor on Michael Pockocky [Rethinking Online Professional Networking].


Power to the People

Eric Kavanagh on Open Source Government:
Citizen Auditors: Web-Enabled, Open Source Government at PublicManager.org.



Marinela Kotsina's philosophy of life.

Michael Pockocky's Creativity is an Illusion.

Steve Forbes stands firmly against network neutrality. [Podtech.net]

Charlotte Talks [WFAE.org] will dedicate their hour-long morning radio show (9am to 10 am) this Monday to the issue of Network Neutrality. Scott Huffman, owner of Charlotte Internet, will be one of the guests on the show speaking to support the inclusion of “network neutrality” provisions in any bill passed by the federal government. Those who support network neutrality aim to prevent network operators from imposing a two-tiered pricing structure on Internet content providers.

Simon Malls Strip 10-yr old of Bandana

Simon Malls Strip 10-yr old of Bandana
Smiley faces and Peace Signs Cannot be Tolerated in 285 Malls/39 States


Peace is too disturbing and controversial a message to be tolerated in civil society today, so says the Simon group who own 285 mall properties in 39 states.

A security guard at the Battlefield Mall in Springfield, Missouri told a 10-year-old girl her bandanna decorated with peace signs, smiley faces and flowers violated the mall’s code of conduct. The bandana was one that could have been purchased right there in the same mall.

I'm seriously concerned about the state of privatization of free speech. The topic of peace is verboten in the shopping mall's "code of conduct."


*I'm in New York. Here's the list of Simon Malls near me. You can search for the malls in your state that you'd like to boycott at the same link.

John Edwards Leads with Conviction, Inspires Hope

John Edwards Leads with Conviction, Inspires Hope

Dan Balz offers an important overview of John Edwards' National Press Club policy address in today's Washington Post. He exposes the stark contrast between the partisan Republican shut-off of reasoned debate in the Senate about the Bush administration's conduct in the Iraq war and Senator Edwards' decidedly refreshing ability to speak for the vast majority of American citizens who believe that the Iraq war was a mistake to begin and is a mess today.

Mr. Balz wrote:

On a day when the Senate defeated two Democratic amendments aimed at forcing President Bush to begin pulling out of Iraq, Edwards told a National Press Club audience the administration has made a mess in Iraq. He said he favors an immediate withdrawal of 40,000 troops and called for all combat forces to be gone in the next 12 to 18 months.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has spoken of the many difficulties that arise from ideological conflict when men fight each other for means or methods and lose sight of their human ends and goals. A person reading that might think that the Dalai Lama was speaking about the war on terror or any war between nation states. Yet, I see that happening between the Republicans and Democrats in our own halls of government today!

"Rubber-stamp" Republicans have our nation locked into a very unpopular war, considered unjust and immoral by many spritual leaders and citizens, in which more than 2500 Americans and uncounted thousands of Iraqi civilians have lost their lives.

Democrats are offering many ideas, from Senator John Kerry's time-sensitive pull-out recommendation to Senator Jack Reed's non-binding no-timetable withdrawl plan. Meanwhile, the "rubber stamp" Republicans are voting like drunken imperialists who never want the occupation to end. When pressed on the issue of the Democratic amendments on Iraq being debated in the Senate yesterday, Senator Edwards did not say that he was with Kerry, with Reed, or with anyone. In true-leader fashion, he told the interested people at the National Press Club what he believed. Not only does he express hope that America will reclaim the moral high ground with the international community, he conveys his unique ideas on how to make it happen. We can only move forward as one America. Any other way has failed and will continue to fail. The bitterly divisive GOP front has made a deliberate political assassination of reason and debate simply because it came from a Democrat. The Washington D.C. political battle for means or methods have caused "Rubber-Stamp Republicans" to lose sight of human ends and goals in our world. To be moral supporters of liberated citizens of a burgeoning democracy, you do not kill them (or their brothers and sisters) in a military occupation of their land.

When I heard Senator John Edwards speaking about Iraq yesterday, I asked myself why no one in Washington, D.C. is willing to speak so frankly about what each and every American can see so clearly for him-or-herself. Why does politics have to feel like a game of Evil Charades? Americans are sick of it - - sick to death of the game.

The people dying in Iraq are flesh and blood. It's easy to sit on your tail and crow about courage and tenacity when you're not the ones walking around with 70 pounds of armor in a steaming urban nightmare where a burgeoning democracy is leaning toward amnesty for insurgents who've already killed some of the best friends our soldiers have ever known - soldiers who'd die for one another because they loved their fellow troops and believed in a great and united America. [See this letter from soldier Sean Frerking]

I want a leader who thirsts for social justice in our world, is as strong as steel, yet has an innate and unshakeable compassion for every living being. I sense that Senator John Edwards is that kind of man. Possessing a strong independent mind and a longing to see all Americans working for the best America we can be, he doesn't rely on a bunch of consultants and speechwriters to relay his convictions to the public. He lays out his beliefs and respectfully leaves it up to each of us to decide for ourselves whether or not we find substance and personal truth in what he's saying. That respect is the strength of his ability to connect with so many Americans.

We are all jaded with the belief that all politics is dirty. It isn't so, even though it's easy to feel that way with the many disappointing tactics we've seen from the Bush administration and their Rubber Stamp Republican "division-crew". They have shown that they disdain the Democratic party and they crave power far more than they care about the unity and the individual rights of the people of this nation. It is so far flown from the ideal set down in the Gettysburg Address that I often hang my head and cry.

What has happened to the party of Lincoln?

I hope that all of America will continue to wake up to what's happening in this country and to see John Edwards for the great leader I know he will be. Bloomberg News says he sounded like a candidate yesterday. I think he sounded more like I'd hope the President of the United States would sound like. May it be!

- Jude

John Edwards to Outline Plan to End Poverty at National Press Club Today

John Edwards to Outline Plan to End Poverty at National Press Club Today

Today at approximately 1pm, Senator John Edwards, who recently surprised many by beating Hillary Clinton in an early Des Moines Register (Iowa) poll for 2008 presidential candidates, will deliver a policy address to the National Press Club about a 30-year plan to end poverty as we know it today. He will outline his plan to cut poverty by one third within a decade, lifting 12 million Americans out of poverty by 2016, and to end poverty within 30 years, lifting 37 million Americans out of poverty by 2036.

Senator Edwards will also discuss the creation of a working society for the 21st century. In the Working Society, Senator Edwards believes that everyone who is willing to work hard will be expected to work and, in turn, be rewarded for it. He will outline his initiative which includes major new policies in the areas of work, housing, education, savings, and family responsibility.

Because Senator Edwards believes that HUD has become a symbol of bureaucracy and mismanagement, he will outline a plan for a transformed HUD that promotes housing with opportunity instead of economic isolation and at the same time, cut the federal bureaucracy by promoting regional decision making.

See Bob Herbert's column today (NYT Select subsc req.)

Have we become too selfish and cynical? Or is the U.S. — despite being shaken by terror and distressed by the unending conflict in Iraq — ready to roll up its sleeves and renew its commitment to some of the goals and themes that once formed the basis of the American dream?

John Edwards is betting on the latter. In a major speech today at the National Press Club in Washington, Mr. Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who was John Kerry's running mate in the 2004 presidential election, will ask:

"What kind of America do we want — not just today, but 20 years from now? And how do we think we can get there from here?"

The speech will be aired on CSPAN3.


From today's ABC's Political Note:

2008: Democrats:

If John Edwards becomes a strong presidential candidate in 2008, historians and strategists will long study the progress he made in 2006, much of it under the normal radar.

In a must-read that gets at a full 65% of the basis of Edwards' forward motion, Bloomberg's Roger Simon has Gordon Fischer, the former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, saying Edwards has great support in Iowa and that the Edwards' apology on Iraq "made a big difference to Democrats here.'' LINK

In contrast with the "old-style" populism of Kerry and the "cautious middle" approach of former Gov. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Sen. Bayh, Charlie "The Kicker" Cook tells Simon that Edwards is "now offering a hybrid of populism and liberalism that works."

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) (who saw HRC as untouchable a year ago) says if Edwards wins Iowa, "he will be No. 1 in New Hampshire, and the people in New Hampshire are very smart when it comes to presidential politics."

Per Simon, Edwards is planning speeches on energy costs and education to follow yesterday's speech on poverty.

Note well the Big Labor angle too.

Per the Washington Post's Dan Balz, "On a day when the Senate defeated two Democratic amendments aimed at forcing President Bush to begin pulling out of Iraq, Edwards told a National Press Club audience the administration has made a mess in Iraq. He said he favors an immediate withdrawal of 40,000 troops and called for all combat forces to be gone in the next 12 to 18 months." LINK

Barbara Barrett of the Raleigh News & Observer highlights Edwards' comments on Iraq too. LINK

Tim Funk's coverage of the Edwards speech gets some space in The State in South Carolina - not unimportant, that. LINK

Whatever Happened to Debate and Joe Lieberman?

Whatever Happened to Debate and Joe Lieberman?

It's been great to see Democratic Senators coming out and debating the Iraq war and what we must do to redeploy our troops - and when - and where. These are all questions that will have to be answered unless we really do want our troops to remain in an Iraq quagmire for another 20 years.

"It's been interesting to watch the Democrats debate among themselves," said Senate Republican Whip Mitch McConnell.

I'll bet it's been interesting, since McConnell and so many of his fellow partisan Republican Senators have chosen to rubber-stamp a macabre failure of policy in Iraq and would have no idea what the word debate means or looks like. I don't think they'd know a meaningful debate if it bit them on the ass.

To me, it's been interesting watching the Republicans do absolutely nothing as gas and oil prices rise higher by the day. I was also quite interested to see the debate they didn't have when they stacked the courts with right-wing justices. One of the most interesting things was seeing Rick Santorum nearly pissing his pants with excitement over pre-1991 rusty shells found in Iraq with degraded chemicals in them - as useless and benign as Grandma's 20-year old dexedrine prescription hanging around collecting dust in the bathroom drawer.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat facing a stiff primary challenge largely because of his pro-war stance, said he would oppose the Democratic amendments.

Joe's lost his heart and soul, I'm afraid. I've never said this before, and I'm really sad to be having to admit it now, but I hope he's soundly defeated come election time. Any man or woman who tells this own party that they should not criticize the president on the conduct of the Iraq war is telling individuals within his party to ignore their conscience.

As Harold Meyerson recently commented,

".. the conduct and duration of our involvement in Iraq is the No. 1 issue in the minds of the American people -- a majority of whom believe that the Bush administration has botched the war about as badly as a war can be botched."

It's a paradox. Lieberman's trying not to look partisan, so he's defending a war run by partisans who eschew and mock real, healthy, and necessary debate. I happen to think he'll be sorry for have taken such a position someday. To me, it runs against anything Thomas Jefferson ever warned us about.

I'm more than concerned about having been lied to about the reasons for being in Iraq; concerned about the total lack of security in Iraq, concerned that citizens in Iraq are being repressed by theocrats within their communities - more so than anyone who currently lives in Iran; concerned about hearing that our soldiers are being accused of murder and concerned that the people who've targeted and killed our troops are being offered amnesty by the new government while we're still occupying Iraq. If Joe Lieberman's not concerned enough about this entire mess to speak out, I respect his opinion. He should just keep himself quiet and vote with the Repubican partisans (who like their Democrats quiet and submissive) if he thinks that's the proper thing to do. Let real American leaders of conscience take the floor.

The 23rd Qualm

The 23rd Qualm

You've got to see this satirical psalm qualm that was sent to blogger Patrick Eakes by his dad on Fathers Day:

The 23rd Qualm

Bush is my shepherd; I may not relax.
He maketh trees to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.
Yea, though I trudge through the labyrinth of pollution and war,I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich, and media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the name of thy religion.
Thou anointest the land with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my garage apartment forever.

FP Mag: Experts Assess U.S. War on Terror

FP Mag: Experts Assess
U.S. War on Terror

"We are losing the war on terror because we are treating the symptoms and not the cause. Our insistence that Islamic fundamentalist ideology has replaced communist ideology as the chief enemy of our time feeds al Qaeda’s vision of the world."

- Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
From an article called The Terrorism Index in ForeignPolicy magazine (July/August 2006}

FOREIGN POLICY and the Center for American Progress teamed up to survey more than 100 of America’s top foreign-policy experts — Republicans and Democrats alike - mining the highest echelons of America’s foreign-policy establishment for their assessment of how the United States is fighting the Global War on Terror.

10 Steps to End America's Fossil-Fuel Addiction

10 Steps to End America's
Fossil-Fuel Addiction

The most current edition of Popular Science boasts a special secion called the Future of Energy- 10 Steps To End America’s Fossil-Fuel Addiction.
• Step 1: Harness the Wind
• Step 2: End Gridlock
• Step 3: Rev Up Our Hybrid Rides
• Step 4: Brew Better Ethanol
• Step 5: Switch on the Sun Lamp
• Step 6: Go H2
Step 7: Ride the Waves for Watts
• Step 8: Dig Deeper
• Step 9: Make Gas from Trash
Step 10: Use "Negawatts"

Click here for an interactive map titled The New Power Planet.

Lookin' For a Leader

Lookin' For a Leader

Don't miss Amy (NC Dem's) animated short "Lookin' for a Leader" (as seen at Youtube)

'Matriot' Peace Majority: The New Soccer Moms

'Matriot' Peace Majority: The New Soccer Moms

Katrina vanden Heuvel introduced Voters For Peace to readers at her Editor's Cut feature of The Nation online this week.

The Matriots - mothers/patriots/peace activists - these women are the new soccer moms. They take their responsibility as citizens just as seriously as they take their responsibility as mothers. They belong to diverse families and they live in every kind of neighborhood in every state of the union. They're raising the next generation of Americans. Cindy Sheehan lost her son, who was an Eagle Scout and a soldier, to a war that all can see as a chaotic mess and a macabre mistake. These "matriots" believe that life is precious - far too precious to play rhetorical games while pursuing a failed policy. After all, their children are the ones who are asked to fight these wars - risking death and having to wound and kill others. They believe that war should always be a last resort because, as evil as the United States should choose to label anyone else, these mothers know that war brings about its own evils. Ending the war in Iraq is of the utmost importance to them. Regardless of party, they will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not wholeheartedly a speedy end to the war in Iraq. They believe that all elected representatives should act overtly to prevent any future war of aggression. This public position must be part of the campaign of any politician who expects to get their votes.

42 House Democrats voted to pass the vacuous resolution this week (HR 861) despite convincing and heartfelt debate from so many on the Democratic side of the aisle. These are the names, and may I say that I am deeply ashamed of their vote on this issue:

Barrow (12th-GA), Bean (8th-IL), Berman (28th-CA),

Berry (1st-AR), Bishop (2nd-GA), Boren (2nd-OK),

Boswell (3rd-IA), Boucher (9th-VA), Cardoza (18th-CA),

Case (2nd-HI), Chandler (6th-KY), Cooper(5th-TN),

Costa (20th-CA), Costello (12th-IL), Cramer (5th-AL),

Cuellar (28th-TX), Davis (4th-TN), Edwards (17th-TX),

Etheridge (2nd-NC), Gordon (6th-TN), Gene Green (29th-TX),

Herseth (SD), Higgins (27th-NY), Holden (17th-PA),

Kind (3rd-WI), Larsen (2nd-WA), Lipinski (3rd-IL),

Lynch (9th-MA), Marshall (3rd-GA), Matheson (2nd-UT),

McCarthy (4th-NY), McIntyre (7th-NC), Melacon (3rd-LA),

Moore (3rd-KS), Peterson (7th-MN), Ross (4th-AR),

Salazar (3rd-CO), Smith (9th-WA), Snyder (2nd-AR),

Spratt (5th-SC), Taylor (MS), Thompson (2nd-MS)




What if millions decided to vote their conscience and said 'No More War Candidates'?

Engelhardt Interview with Andrew Bacevich

Engelhardt Interview with Andrew Bacevich:
Time to Rethink U.S. Role in the World



I am not ashamed to call myself an intelligent patriot. The writing you see me do here is not for profit of any kind. It is a direct extension of my deepest conscience. I joined a contingent of concerned and intelligent patriots last month in Washington D.C. on a two-mile walk through the streets of the city. You didn't have to belong to a special interest group to be a part of this march. One hour before the march began, I'd had no idea it was even going to take place. As the group marched, citizens on the street were invited to join and shouts of "Wake Up, America!" were echoing off the walls of tall buildings where citizens waved and gave "thumbs-up" from open windows above. Escorted by police on either end of the group of walking and chanting citizens, we made our way to the front of the home of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld to tell him that we would not accept a war in Iran as part of the failed course that the Bush administration has taken in America's war on terror.

Cindy Sheehan and others gather peacefully outside the Rumsfeld doorway

Last month, Tom Englehardt interviewed Andrew Bacevich, who recently took part in an eye-opening and frank discussion for Harpers magazine titled "American Coup d’Etat: Military thinkers discuss the unthinkable." Mr. Bacevich is professor of international relations at Boston University and the author, most recently, of The New American Militarism. He served as an officer in the US Army from 1969 to 1992.

Judging from the underlying tone of uncertainty represented in the interview, Mr. Bacevich is not completely convinced that Rumsfeld isn't plotting a strategy that would include militray attacks on Iran as part of his vision of a future extension of the war on terror. Mr. Bacevich reminds us that the officer corps of the U.S. military privately want none of it:

Having said that, with all the speculation about Bush administration interest in expanding the Global War on Terror to include Iran, I suspect the officer corps, already seeing the military badly overstretched, doesn't want to have any part of such a war. Going public with attacks on Rumsfeld is one way of trying to slow whatever momentum there is toward an Iran war.

I must say, I don't really think we're on a track to have a war with Iran any time soon -- maybe I'm too optimistic here [he laughs] -- but I suspect even the civilian hawks understand that the United States is already overcommitted, that to expand the war on terror to a new theater, the Iranian theater, would in all likelihood have the most dire consequences, globally and in Iraq.

Juan Cole has recently said something along the same lines, as I posted here yesterday.

Mr. Bacevich says, when we hear the generals talking about Donald Rumsfeld's incompetence and micromanagement, what they're doing is arguing against Rumsfeld's military transformation project that, in Bacevich's all-too-kind words, resulted in an outcome in Iraq that, to date, is "at best ambiguous."

He puts a counter-spin on the talking points you hear about the alleged brilliance of the vision of Rumsfeld's downsized lean-mean-and-ready military transformation, along with the "New American Century" chickenhawks and their blown expectation for the success of American military supremacy to achieve an imperialistic goal. At one point in the interview he says that he doesn't buy as readily into the "Bush lied" set of beliefs. He thinks Bush and company believed everything they were saying.:

They really believed that, once they succeeded in Iraq, a whole host of ancillary benefits were going to ensue, transforming the political landscape of the Middle East. All of those expectations were bizarre delusions and we're paying the consequences now.

He lays out some of the consequences:

This country of 290 million people has a force of about 130,000 soldiers committed in Iraq, fighting something on the order of 10-20,000 insurgents and a) we're in a war we can't win, b) we're in the fourth year of a war we probably can't sustain much longer. For those who believe in the American imperial project, and who see military supremacy as the foundation of that empire, this ought to be a major concern: What are we going to do to strengthen the sinews of American military power, because it's turned out that our vaunted military supremacy is not what it was cracked up to be. If you're like me and you're quite skeptical about this imperial project, the stresses imposed on the military and the obvious limits of our power simply serve to emphasize the imperative of rethinking our role in the world so we can back away from this unsustainable notion of global hegemony.

When Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa) and many other House Democrats argued for a change in course last week during the debate on the vacuous House Resolution 861, they were saying that we need to rethink our role in the world. How that translates to "cut and run" is rationally ambiguous, but "cut and run" is a perfect rhetorical slogan to make a political opponent look like a coward. HR861 was just that - - a perfect rhetorical tool to help partisan Republicans make Democrats look like cowards. In the meantime, the same Republicans made a collective agreement, even if it was a subconscious agreement, to abdicate their responsibility to even pretend to welcome reasoned debate on rethinking the United States' role in the modern world. I think it's going to come back and bite them in the ass unless they can turn their narrative around with Rovian stealth-craftiness when (and if) the Bush administration finally sees the dire consequences of their failed policy.

Be sure to read the Englehardt interview with Andrew Bacevich in full. Beyond the U.S. being preoccupied with trying to manage Iraq, he says he's hard-pressed to see a coherent strategy in the Middle East or elsewhere.


Seeing this for myself, I joined that walk to Rumsfeld's house last month to let him know that you can only fool the American people for so long. Rumsfeld's put on a good game face, but it's past the time we should have ended the occupation in Iraq. It surely isn't a time to be stirring up a new conflict in Iran. The longer we wait to have real debate about our nation's role in the world, the weaker a nation we will become to the world and to ourselves.

* Those readers who want some background on the issues discussed in this interview are advised, by Mr. Egelkhardt, to pick up a copy of Bacevich's book, The New American Militarism. There is also a background post about Mr. Bacevich and his ideas at TomDispatch.

Robert Zoellick Walks Away

Robert Zoellick Walks Away

I have something that I wish to say regarding the lack of commitment and responsibility that stems from what I believe has been a series of poor choices made by the Bush administration when considering the people most likely to take seriously their solemn duties to the people of this country in the positions of great responsibility to which they are assigned.

This thought came to me today when Condoleeza Rice announced that Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, 52, the department's No. 2 official is resigning his post to take a job with Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., the world's biggest securities firm by market value. Rice has not yet announced a successor to Zoellick. White House spokesman Tony Snow said that Zoellick "has been wanting to pursue opportunities in the private sector for sometime and now he's going to do it." I guess opportunity to be a chief diplomat on behalf of his nation and its people wasn't the opportunity that Zoellick found most inspiring. After having persuaded the most powerful rebel group in the western Sudanese area of Darfur to sign a peace agreement with the government after four sleepless nights of negotiations earlier this month in Nigeria, Mr. Zoellick is walking away.

Was it the lure of the green on Wall Street that tempted our #2 State chief away? I don't think so. I believe it was a matter of pride. When John Snow's replacement for Treasury secretary was made and Hank Paulson took the job, Mr. Zoellick was ready to bolt because he didn't get the job himself. It was no secret. Bloomberg News reported last month that "a prominent Republican close to the White House said Zoellick told administration officials in unmistakable terms of his plans and that the No. 2 U.S. diplomat has received indications that President George W. Bush is unlikely to tap him for the Treasury job."

It seems that Sudan was just a stepping stone to Robert Zoellick in his prideful quest for the top job at Treasury. His personal hopes fell flat and you can see how quickly he dropped the public facade of caring and commitment to the awesome responsibility that had been handed to him by the President of the United States. Simply put, Zoellick was ready to bolt because he had bigger fish to fry. I'd thank Mr. Zoellick for every significant part he'd played in securing peace when the only other option was violence, but I would hope that the person chosen to replace him has less ambition and more genuine and serious commitment to peace and diplomacy. He's leaving a hole during a period when he's needed the most. At a time when the President and his administration have made so many decisions on the side of unnecessary violence when diplomacy was the first and best option, Americans need to know they have committed and responsible people in the top positions at State.

It should be disturbing to know that Mr. Zoellick was only performing while waiting for a cushier job to come along.

On a last note, think, if you will, about another one of the poor choices that this administration has made about the people they put into top positions of responsibility. Think back to the woefully inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina and FEMA’s (Heckuva-job-Brownie) Michael Brown, the failed "Boss Hog" of the Arabianhorse show cicrcuit.

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, BEGIN IT.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Begin it now.

--Goethe

Goldberg Wears An Empty Moral Hat

Goldberg Wears An Empty Moral Hat
..covering a Democrat-hating head

I'd never view Jonah Goldberg as a leader, especially after what I just read. His imagination seems to be about as wide as the walls of his closed little mind. All he seems to know and to understand is "kill or be killed."

Reading his latest attack piece on Democrats, I sense that he cannot seem to imagine any other route to settling the Iraqi situation with any scenario other than crack downs and more futile killings. Goldberg feigns shocked distaste over what appears to be a common-sense belief among many political leaders (and sensible American people) that, when Iraq's Prime Minister al Maliki gives amnnesty to murderers of Americans, it will change the conscience of the people, making more Americans much easier to target and kill. Although there is no realistic correlation, Goldberg transposes his feigned distaste about those who refuse to join him in supporting amnesty for murdering insurgents into hyperbole about Democrats wanting to "cut and run" from Iraq. Goldberg takes great pains to remain fact-free about the hundreds of entirely reasonable points that the Democrats made on the House floor this week about changing the course in Iraq while debating HR861. I guess he thinks no one was paying attention.

Blowhards come a dime a dozen these days, and I suppose Goldberg is one of the Kings of the Blowhards. I haven't seen him sign up to go and fight the war yet. I guess he'd rather sit behind a desk and make stuff up about Democrats while he defends 'get-out-of-jail-free' cards for the murderers of American troops.

He shows that he hasn't got the smarts to see beyond our military occupation in Iraq. (Or if he does have the smarts, he's reserving them for when he can best use them to make Republicans smell like roses). Dear God, I hope someone in power has the smarts to see beyond U.S. military involvement, because the time has come for the occupation in Iraq to end. For all their rhetorical complaining about Democrats having few ideas, the party enjoying majority status today has nothing to offer except for vacuous rhetoric and pundits that offer no creativity; no rationale that follows an acceptable moral course.